Mino Martinazzoli

Mino Martinazzoli
Mayor of Brescia
In office 5 December 1994 – 14 December 1998
Preceded by	Paolo Corsini
Succeeded by	Paolo Corsini
Minister of Defence
In office 22 July 1989 – 27 July 1990
Prime Minister	Giulio Andreotti
Preceded by	Valerio Zanone
Succeeded by	Virginio Rognoni
Minister of Justice
In office 4 August 1983 – 1 August 1986
Prime Minister	Bettino Craxi
Preceded by	Clelio Darida
Succeeded by	Virginio Rognoni
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office 12 July 1983 – 22 April 1992
Constituency	Brescia
Member of the Senate
In office 25 May 1972 – 12 July 1983
In office 22 April 1992 – 14 April 1994
Constituency	Lombardy
President of the Province of Brescia
In office 10 May 1970 – 22 June 1972
Preceded by	Ercoliano Bazoli
Succeeded by	Tarcisio Gitti
Personal details
Born	Fermo Martinazzoli (1931-11-30)30 November 1931 Orzinuovi, Italy
Died	4 September 2011(2011-09-04) (aged 79) Brescia, Italy
Political party	DC (till 1994) PPI (1994-2002) UDEUR (2004-2011)
Alma mater	University of Pavia

Fermo Mino Martinazzoli (Italian pronunciation: [ˈfermo ˈmiːno martinatˈtsɔːli]; Orzinuovi, 3 November 1931 – Brescia, 4 September 2011) was an Italian lawyer, politician and former Minister. He was the last secretary of the Christian Democracy party and the first secretary of the Italian People's Party founded in 1994.

Career

Martinazzoli studied at Collegio Borromeo in Pavia, where he received a law degree. He then became a lawyer.

In the years 1960–1970s he assumed official roles in Brescia's DC, and became president of the province (1970–1972). He was also elected in the Italian Senate, after which he became Minister of Justice in 1983, a position he held for three years. In 1986–1989 he was president of DC's deputies. In 1989–1990 he was Minister of Defence, but resigned (together with other ministers of DC's left wing) after the approval of a law which strengthened Silvio Berlusconi's monopoly over private TV channels in Italy.

In 1992, when Democrazia Cristiana was being wiped out by the Tangentopoli bribery scandal, Martinazzoli, generally respected as an honest and competent man, was elected national secretary. Despite his efforts, the political crisis which followed the corruption scandals forced him to dissolve DC in 1994. Martinazzoli then founded a new party, based on similar ideals, known as People's Party" (1994–2002) (Partito Popolare Italiano, or PPI), whose name recalled that of the ancestor of DC, which was founded in the early 20th century by Luigi Sturzo.

In the new majoritarian system, Martinazzoli's party placed itself in the center, between the left (which included the heirs of the Italian Communist Party) and the new Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia, which had allied with the northern regionalist party, Lega Nord, and the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale. His will not to ally with any of them caused numerous politicians (such as Pierferdinando Casini and Clemente Mastella) to leave PPI and form the Centro Cristiano Democratico, which supported Berlusconi. At the 1994 elections, Martinazzoli formed a center alliance known as Pact for Italy, including PPI and other democratic centre forces. However, the result of the election was disappointing, with PPI obtaining 11%, some one third of DC's consensus before its dissolution. In the same year, he accepted to run as mayor of Brescia for the new centre-left formation L'Ulivo, winning the final ballot and acting as mayor until 1998. In 2000 he lost the competition with Roberto Formigoni for the presidency of Lombardy.

After PPI was dissolved in 2002, Martinazzoli migrated to Mastella's UDEUR (2004), being appointed as its president. He resigned in 2005.

Sources

• Valle, Annachiara (2009). Uno strano democristiano. Milan: Rizzoli.